Abstract When language change phenomena have repercussions in various social areas at the same time, they are worth an analysis. One of the well documented occurrences of this kind is the discursive history of the metonymic proper name Bologna as a designation of an education reform. As Johannes Angermüller und Ronny Scholz stated in their remarkable study (2013), its mere introduction had made some political processes easier. In this paper the question is put whether some distinctions of the notable metonymy theory by Peter Koch (2004) are able to deliver categories to clarify this phenomenon. In doing so, I point out some deficiencies of Kochs approach concerning his conception of metonymy as such and demonstrate that these are to be ascribed to its “cognitive” frame and that the remedy lies implicitly in an elementary consideration by Saussure and in an explicit passage by Husserl whom Koch himself invokes. As a result of this, I come to the conclusion that Saussure and, particularly, Husserl could have elucidated the most crucial feature of the metonymic proper name more appropriately.